Lay Down Your Worries
.
Philippians 4:4-7
4. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5. Let all men know your forbearance. The Lord is at hand. 6. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
My translation substitutes forbearance with gentleness. My hand-written notes indicate that what is meant is ‘justice—but more’, a Christ-like consideration for others. At one time, I interpreted these verses to indicate that we should rejoice in the Lord because, if we prayed hard enough and long enough, and with a sincere enough heart, God would grant us our request. I didn’t feel that if a request was not granted, that meant the requester was sinful and was being punished – including myself. I guess I just felt that what I was asking for wasn’t meant to be. In the case of my unanswered prayers, I guess I felt what I was requesting was just not God’s will, and left it at that.
As I read these words today, I understand the bigger picture here. We are to rejoice in the Lord always because of His love and mercy, and especially because of His grace! We are to present every request to Him, every wish, every desire, every decision—small and large. When God is the center of our lives, everything else will fall in to place—everything! We don’t need to sit up worrying about things. We don’t need to fret about whether or not our requests are heard. We don’t need to expend energy struggling with whether the outcome of a situation will be “happy.” It will be in the best interest of our souls and of our eternal life. That is the God’s perspective.
The Lord is at hand. He is ever-present in our lives, in our existence. He was present even before our existence! As our creator, He could never wish us ill or harm. That doesn’t mean we won’t suffer, and that we won’t struggle in our lives. It means very simply that God will be with us through it all—good, bad and everything in between. God doesn’t cause us to suffer, rather, He travels through it with it. Because He took the human form of Christ, He feels our hurts, our heartaches, our disappointments and betrayals, just as much as he rejoices when we rejoice.
Paul implored rejoicing here, though, as a constant state of gratitude in the certainty of God’s love and care; and his ever present watchfulness over and involvement in our lives. Yes, I do believe He is intimately involved. It from the perspective of heaven though. He sees our lives in view of eternity and has already known and forgotten and been reminded again of every instant of our lives. We rejoice even when we don’t think our prayers have been answered. Because we trust and believe that God has something else in mind for us. We don’t always know what that is, or how it will play out in the big scheme of things, but we trust and believe nonetheless.
When we pray, we are wise to ask God to use us as He wills. To make us instruments in the grand orchestra of life He has already composed. We can lay down our worries and anxieties at the foot of the cross. And then the prayer we lift is “Thank you. Please use me as you will.” We rejoice because once we have made our requests known to God, we can sleep in peace, live in joy and share the Good News of Jesus Christ with reckless abandon!
My prayer today is that you celebrate the lavish, overwhelming grace of your God and Creator. And that you rejoice in the Lord always. I say it again, Rejoice!
Mary
